Politics

Former George W. Bush official Pippa Malmgren does a good analysis for Bloomberg of the issues important to voters and how they will play in this year's presidential election

The problems Italy faces may have deeper roots than simply the current prime minister. It is not clear that the opposition offers a significantly different agenda rather than different personalities. ECB bond buying of Italian debt…

Below is a video of my appearance on RT International last night discussing the recent bill to authorise sanctions against the Chinese for currency manipulation. I see this bill as all about the politics and little about the economics.

US national elections are 13 months away and not coincidentally, the Congress is looking at a new measures to encourage China to re-value the yuan. While there is little doubt that the yuan in under-valued, though reasonable people may…

If you believed the Republican leaders, you would say this is reckless monetary policy aimed specifically at supporting President Obama, a Democrat. You saw the last post I wrote, with the court scene from “A Few Good Men” tacked on.…

I want to highlight three things here from Wolfgang Munchau on the euro zone because he reaches conclusions I have reached. Below are excerpts of what Munchau writes about a Greek default, Italian solvency and euro zone dissolution.

The Fed feels politically constrained due to its own machinations in the past and the likelihood it will engage in a muscular easing policy if and when the US economy double dips. It does not want to come under attack for this Euro bank…

In the US, there is a heated debate about America’s government pension scheme Social Security. The Republican frontrunner for President Rick Perry has called it a ‘Ponzi scheme’, for which he was derided by the previous Republican…

Implicit in my post explaining that Germany is preparing for Greek bankruptcy is the view amongst European policy makers that default does not equal euro zone exit. I think I should reiterate this because a lot of people are acting like an…

The mood in Germany is still about cutting Greece loose to save Italy and Spain